Srs BznsSite Update: 06/08/18

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Fun Fact: it's been a whopping 589 days since the last major site update. But after over a week of downtime HaloCustoms is back with a fresh lick of paint and an array of QOL updates, just in time for E3 2018!

This ongoing upgrade (which is about 80% complete) is a complete and total overhaul of the site. My goal here is try and incorporate all the things that have made HC great over the years like a greatest hits album of sorts.

So let's break down some of the changes;

Media Stream​

As well as being the home page; rather than just being a place new articles go to disappear into relative obscurity, the Media Stream is now a fully featured blog with all 522 posts categorised lovingly by hand. The option to filter media stream posts by author will also be available soon. Categories and Authors also get their own featured slider for their respective Media Stream catalogues.

Discord Integration​

The entire HaloCustoms Discord guild is now available directly on the site in place of the OG shoutbox which is now Comment 'F' to pay respects.
Right now it's just a live feed of everything going on in the server, but synced 2 way chat linked to HaloCustoms accounts is coming soon™ .

Live Streams​

The Streaming portal was arguably the most popular feature of HC "2.0", especially later on in its lifespan and it's received some updates too. No longer do you need to submit your live stream for non-twitch broadcasts. I'm happy to officially announce that HC now has every Halo related stream on Twitch, Mixer and SmashCast. Just stream a Halo title on one of those 3 platforms to get in on the action yourself.

Custom Games​

The hot tamale, the reason why we're all here after all. This update is the first of 3 to bring back the lobby scheduler to it's former glory (in the respect of it's feature set).
This first Primary update brings a large visual overhaul to the table as well as adding a filterable category system so you can state what kinds of content your lobby will contain at a glance and allow users to easily find hosts with the type of content they wish to play on.

All information in regards to your Custom Game are housed within the new Lobby Banner, instantly giving any post some visual flair. You can see a demo of this below;

It's also worth noting that you no longer need to learn the site's BB code in order to make beautiful lobby posts with configurable fonts, text colors, smilies and even savable drafts. The tools at your disposal for content delivery have now been expanded and this is something we'll look to further expand on in future updates for the sake of variety on which you can unleash your limitless creativity.

The next update for Custom Games will return the option to natively send your host an Xbox Live message direct from the site to make it easy and uniform to invite their RSVPs. Update 3 will purely be dedicated to a return of the ratings system (oh how we miss her so).

Please keep me in the loop with any feedback you have in regards to any of these changes. I'm excited to know what you think to my labour of love and on behalf of the entire team at HC, I hope to continue this journey with you all into the rest of 2018 and beyond.

Site admin and all around zesty fellow. Although an esteemed lemon, "Addy" is discouraged from participating in Staff vs. Community events due to having a K/D ratio lower than Halo 4's active population.

Comments

While I liked the way HC looked before, I gotta admit, everything looks so clean now. Much more streamlined. The one tiny issue I have is that if I want to see the "latest profile posts" without leaving the home page, I have to scroll all the way down.

While I liked the way HC looked before, I gotta admit, everything looks so clean now. Much more streamlined. The one tiny issue I have is that if I want to see the "latest profile posts" without leaving the home page, I have to scroll all the way down.